


Kaamos

by sunshine_and_symphonies



Series: Symposium [3]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Bruce Wayne Has Issues, Canonical Character Death, Communication Failure, Estrangement, Family Issues, Family Secrets, Gen, Good Sibling Cassandra Cain, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Hurt Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Please make sure that you are looking after yourself okay I love you, Protective Bruce Wayne, Wayne Family-Centric, this will get better i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29785344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshine_and_symphonies/pseuds/sunshine_and_symphonies
Summary: In Finnish, Kaamos means more than just "Polar Night", a 24 hour period of darkness. It also draws ties to the longing for sunshine, the sense of depression, and a lack of enthusiasm or motivation. Kaamos signifies long dark days and no inspiration: it is the best reflection of a night with no end. When trapped in an impossible situation as one of the most notorious vigilante groups, how does one tell their French cousin that their best friend is dead without either revealing too much or putting her in danger?In which The Waynes struggle with the loss of their son, grandson, and brother, only to then loose their cousin in the aftermath.
Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Alfred Pennyworth, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Barbara Gordon, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Bruce Wayne, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Damian Wayne, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Dick Grayson, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Jason Todd, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Damian Wayne, Stephanie Brown & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Tim Drake & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Series: Symposium [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2162280
Comments: 49
Kudos: 103





	Kaamos

**Author's Note:**

> Hello Hello Hello!
> 
> If you are new here - Welcome! Thank you for clicking on my lil' story. As the author, I would recommend reading the full series first before this one, but who am I to judge? Heaven knows that I've read things wayyy out of order. It just might make a bit more sense for you as the reader! 
> 
> As I frantically work through the outline I have for the next work (it's a BIG one too!!), I wanted to share a bit of the Wayne's perspective to give some insight as to why they made the choice they did. It is not to defend that choice, simply just to do a study into how grief and loss can impact a family. That said, this is a very heavy work, so please make sure that you are taking care of your emotional needs, alright? It's no fun reading things that hurt to simply be hurt - after all, I can PROMISE you that this series will have a very lovely ending. We just have to make it through the valley to get there. Okay? Okay. <3
> 
> A few house keeping notes: there is some fairly harsh swearing in this chapter, but I think it is mostly in French. I have given you the translations in the end notes, if you are curious so that way your search history doesn't have to look anything like mine... Other than that, as always, if I have missed an important tag or trigger warning, please let me know and I will update the necessary areas to make sure that everyone can enjoy this series as safely as possible.
> 
> Also, on a more personal note, the Alabama Senate Health Committee has sent a rather horrific bill (SB10) to the State Senate and House of Representatives. The bill criminalizes transgender related healthcare for youth (ages 19 and below) and also requires teacher to report any "transgender behaviours" (loosely phrased) to parents. This is a topic very important to me, so I would encourage you to read up on it (provided it does not trigger you - your mental health comes first!) and if possible, sign petitions or write to the State Senate/HoRep to urge them to reject it. If possible, please also spread the word so we can support the kiddo's in Alabama who are now more at risk because of this. 
> 
> That's it here! Enjoy?

It was a normal patrol when everything would change. Damian had stopped when Oracle told him there was a call to his civilian line, and that it was from Marinette. Alarm clanged through him at her words. It was barely six in the morning in Paris, and no matter what Marinette would say, she was never an early riser; for her to be calling meant that something was off.

He was right.

Damian’s heart hurt at the raw panic in her voice. Her explanation, however broken, of her nightmare had his throat sizing for a moment out of fear. He knew that the others, or at the very least Oracle, could hear the conversation through the coms. Batman landed behind him after a few minutes, and Damian sat on the edge of the roof to coax Marinette back to sleep. He promised to call her, and she gave a weak laugh that was more a sigh at his attempt of levity.

Patrol continued as normal. Batman grappled through the city, Robin on his three o’clock, as Red Hood and Orphan moved in from the other half of Gotham and the others finished their respective routes. They were going to meet up at Wayne Tower to debrief before finishing patrol.

And then Damian disappeared.

And his body, but not his spirit, was recovered later that night.

\----

_“We have to tell Marinette.”_ Cass signed once they returned, shock and grief weighing on the family like lodestones.

Nobody replied. Everyone went through the motions of cleaning the layers of blood off their suits as Bruce and Alfred took Damian’s body to be cared for. The Batcave stank of blood and sweat and bleach. Overhead the bats that roosted shuffled back and forth as if sensing the ripples of emotion from the various Waynes.

Jason was the first to reply, swallowing conclusively as he mechanically scrubbed his fingernails with a brush, turning the water pink with blood. “How the hell are we going to do that, Cass. For all we know it could paint a target on her back.”

 _“Doesn’t matter. We must tell her.”_ Her movements were sharp.

Bruce came back in, his every step labored. One didn’t need to have their first language be that of the body to read the fury and grief that burdened him. “Let me handle that. Its… it’s my responsibility.”

The former assassin flits over to him, her eyes locking on his. _“Don’t delay.”_

\----

Dick arrives back from Leslie Thompkins’s clinic. His arms are completely wrapped in bandages, his eyes haunted, and the family all piled into one room to sleep. Nobody comments as Dick wraps himself around Jason and Tim and doesn't let go until the morning.

\----

Tim walked into Bruce's office at ten in the morning, eyes shuttered. The entire family was home, each person dealing with the sudden loss of their son, brother or grandson. Bruce was already tearing through the different Justice League files to see if there was anything, or anyone, who could bring his baby back to life. Not even twelve hours had passed since… since his son had been ripped from his life, and Bruce knew that there would be no coming back from this for anyone. He had already reached out to Diana and Clark to see if they knew anything that could be of assistance. Now he was working on a way to justify connecting back with Talia to see if they could use the Lazarus pits once without the interference of the League. Bruce knew that desperation made fools of level headed men, but his _baby,_ the son he hadn’t known until Damian had turned ten, was dead.

“Dad,” Tim said, his steps slow. “B, it’s Marinette. She wants to know where he is.”

That was the other child on the other side of the ocean that Bruce knew he was about to lose, regardless of what he did. He had watched as Marinette, an unstoppable force of love and compassion, had chipped away at it with relentless patience. The changes had been incredibly small, but he had listened as Damian laughed and teased and was vulnerable with this tiny girl across the ocean. Bruce had listened once when Damian’s prank had gone wrong, ready to defend his son against any criticism, only to have Marinette handle the terrified master assassin trapped in a boy's body with incredible grace and dignity. He had listened as this tiny girl who barely made it past his hips tore into Jason for his recklessness and unthinking cruelty. The boys had joked many times that the sun only shone in Gotham when Marinette was here, and while Bruce didn’t fully agree with that idea, he understood why they thought it. The Dupain-Cheng’s were arguably a very normal family that was somehow linked to one of the most powerful and eccentric men in the world, and yet all three of the Parisians seemed unruffled by it. Bruce had been astonished to hear that Marinette didn’t realize the extent of his family's wealth, and even after learning of it continued to treat them the exact same.

He had asked her why, one day. Her response had simply been that money was one way of measuring wealth, and love was another. In her eyes, they were both equally rich.

Which put Bruce in an impossible situation. How does one tell a child who looks at the world without being hardened and bitter, who looks at the worst people has to offer and still offers out a hand time and time again, that the person she called her best friend was dead? They hadn’t told her about Jason’s death because she had still been a baby in the ways that mattered, and Bruce was not going to irrevocably damage another child’s joy. He hadn't been able to bring himself to shatter Marinette’s rosy outlook on life, and yet here he was once again. 

Tim pulled him back to the present moment. His third son, who hid everything close to his heart and ran through a dozen scenarios before making any call, stared at him with eyes that were far too tired to be only 19. “B, what do I even tell her. I can’t… she’s going to-”

He is moving before he even realizes that Tim is falling, and Bruce scoops up his other baby into his arms on the floor to hold him as the young man cries. Damian's loss, despite the boy’s prickly exterior and sharp tongue, was akin to gaining a phantom limb. Bruce had watched as Alfred had to clear a place set after setting it with one too many for their current numbers. He had seen it as Jason had clipped Titus’s leash on with a wounded look as the dog whined near his masters door. It was written in Cassandra’s movements, far too sudden and lacking the subtle humour that seemed to flow from the gravity of two former-master assassins. It is in him, as he woke up this morning and stumbled into the kitchen at 7:30, expecting to see Damian on the phone with Marientte as he always was. That was his favourite moment, when he could see the slightly unguarded expression the boy wore as he gently sketched the curves of Marientte’s face over and over again without her knowing.

“I know, Timmy,” Bruce whispers, grief roaring through him. “I know.”

\----

Cassandra knew that Bruce had not informed her soul-sister of her soul-brother’s loss. She knew, because her first phone call to try and comfort the girl had been disconnected before it even reached the other’s phone. She knew, because the other two calls hadn’t even rung once before her phone shut down. This was an act of desperation and fear, and while she loved the man who had saved her from the lair of a demon, her heart was bleeding for the girl across the sea who was too good, too precious to suffer such a heartbreak.

Which led Cass to her current predicament.

She screenshotted the call log on her phone and printed off six copies before clambering up the rafters to her domain. There, she tucked the papers in different spots around the manor that she knew the others would not find, that she knew only Damian knew about. Her first task done, Cass slipped through the yawning shadows of the manor and into Damian’s room. It was neat with a precision that Cass knew only came from being raised under the thumbs of monsters. Despite this, the older girl had to stop and choke back a silent sob at the tiny flares of a life cut too short within. His school bag lay next to his chair, still zipped up and waiting to be unpacked. A pair of pyjamas was laid out on the bed in preparation for the shortest night of Damian’s week, as he would rise with the sun to be prepared for his call with Marinette. His phone was sitting neatly in the center of his sketchbook, an expensive sketching pencil lined up perfectly with the edge. There was a piece of paper next to the sketchbook where his laptop normally rested, her brother’s elegant script flowing across it.

When his phone chimed, Cass flinched as the noise roared through the silence. She slipped over to the desk, prepared to use Damian’s phone to reply to Marinette to tell her and break the silence over this house, when her eyes snagged on the first words of the paper next to the notebook.

 _Marinette,_ it read. _I have an important question to ask you._

Cass leaned over it, her calves straining as she balanced on her toes, and slowly picked apart the message Damian had prepared. Once she had finished, a headache forming in her mind at the effort required to complete the task as her brother loved his complex and superfluous words, Cass backed up and slid down the wall to sit in the moonlight spilling through the open window. Her heart, which she had only learned of thanks to her soul-sister that offered her a place to hide when she had been fleeing, who gave her the idea to seek out the Waynes and offer her talents too, was cleaved in half at the newfound understanding. Silent tears slipped down her face as she slowly and haltingly whispered a prayer to a faceless god she didn’t even know existed. The phone chimed again, and Cass fled from the room, confused and in agony, as she processed the last words of the speech Damian had crafted.

_Marinette, would you do me the extreme honour of becoming my girlfriend?_

\----

Two more days passed.

Bruce still hadn’t told Marinette.

The Wayne Enterprise board demanded that he release a statement, or they would do it for him.

When he got home and saw the email waiting for him, Bruce broke down and cried.

\----

Everything in the Manor was quiet. No matter where anyone looked, Damian’s influence could be seen in the carefully hung art pieces and tidy collection of novels next to his preferred reading spot. It was in the kitchen, where the tea blends that he had been working on to give to Marinette, sat in small tins with crisp labels next to the various tea ingredients. It was in the package of tofu in the fridge wall and the large jar of almonds that was half full. 

Damian’s presence was everywhere in the Manor, and yet Damian was nowhere to be found.

\----

Days kept passing. Until they had answers, they couldn't tell the Marinette without fear of making her a new, far more _vulnerable_ , target. Meals were quiet as Alfred lifted the “no technology” rule, and all hands were on deck in trying to solve Damian’s murder. 

Marinette, and now her parents, kept texting, calling, and emailing.

\----

They hadn't been able to solve the case before the board delivered on their threat.

The statement was released.

Everyone congregated into Bruce’s office to wait for the inevitable fallout.

Twenty four minutes and forty seven seconds later, Marinette’s call arrived.

\----

Eight minutes and five seconds later, the sun stops shining in Gotham.

\----

Jason cannot stop seeing Marinette’s perfectly blank face as he moves back to his room. His mind is a mess of a thousand different emotions; shock at the realization that she knew their secret, anguish at the porcelain doll that had ripped them apart, anger as the Lazarus pits lingering influence bucked and thrashed against his control. He does not know what to do. His fingers itch for something to break, to kill despite the Bat’s warning. Jason settles on writing an email instead.

To: _pinkpasteries@email.com_

From: _shookethspeare@email.com_

Date: February 29, 2015 12:32

Subject: I’m here if you need me

Hi Mari

I know that I’m not who you want to hear from. I know that you are unbearably angry, that you are incredibly hurt and are grieving, but I’m begging you to not bottle this up inside like you did on the call. Its not healthy for you. We’re also grieving with you, we just lost our baby brother. We understand.

You say the word and I’m on the next flight over. You call at any time and I promise to pick up. Anything you need just let me know okay?

I love you

Jason

He sends it off, and closes his eyes.

 _“You pierce my soul, Marinette”_ Jason thinks, the familiar phrasing of Jane Austen’s _Persuasion_ rising up as his heart aches. _“I am half agony, half hope.”_ His stomach roils, and he swallows. _“Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever.”_

There’s a ping from his computer to alert him of an incoming message. He launches towards the computer, opening the mailbox.

_Message Unable to be Delivered._

\----

Jason tells Dick that Marinette either blocked him or deleted her email account, his eyes crazed and slightly panicked. Dick grabs his phone and swipes open to the chat he has with her. 

Today 13:11

**Birdy** : _Sunshine, please talk to us._

 **Birdy:** _We’re not going to leave you alone with this. We want to help you_

 **Sunshine:** _fuck off_

 **Birdy:** _mari please im begging you_

 **Birdy:** _i understand what you are going through I really do bruce didn’t tell me about jay’s death either_

 **Birdy:** _i found out from the news just like you_

 **Sunshine:** _and that’s supposed to AID?_

 **Sunshine:** _you of all people should have told me, enculé_

 **Sunshine:** _NTM._

 **Birdy:** _M please just let me call you to explain_

_Message Not Delivered_

**Birdy:** _Marinette?_

_Message Not Delivered_

The two brothers stare at the undelivered messages and the final words she sent to them, and feel a foundation they didn’t even notice start to crack beneath them.

\----

Alfred tries to contact Tom through his personal email, only to get a curt response that they will not be visiting this summer, or any summer in the foreseeable future, and a request that the family stops reaching out. He cannot stop thinking about the final remark, one final twist of the well-deserved knife.

_Both Sabine and I believe that you have hurt our daughter enough._

Alfred makes a cup of tea with careful, military precision. He brews it strong enough to become bitter before adding a shot of rum into the cup. Across from him sits the stool where Marinette would plant herself during her visits, her legs swinging and hands flying through the air as she told him everything that she deemed important while he would cook. There is a drawing in crayon tucked on the side of the fridge in the gap between the walls, a picture that Alfred couldn’t help but save in his space. On it is an abstract rendition of the two families together, Marinette on Jason’s shoulders, Tom and Sabine next to Bruce and Alfred, all of the Wayne children, Damian included, around the other figures. It is dated nearly four years ago.

He takes a sip of his tea and mourns the loss of a daughter, son and granddaughter.

\----

The minute after Cass runs out of the room, the sheer fury and pain rolling of Marinette’s picture too much to handle, she scrambles up the rafters and to one of the pictures she stashed around the house. Cass flies like the bird from which her nickname stems to get to a patch of sunlight before she snaps a picture of the screenshot with the caption “tried.” and sends it to her little sister's number. In a small blessing, perhaps a favor from the faceless god she prays to, the message goes through.

She waits for the inevitable rejection.

**Songbird:** _I will contact you when I am ready._

Cass reads the message seven times before leaving the chat alone and telling Babs and Steph to not text Marinette right now. Her other sisters are confused, then angry, and the former assassin scurries to her arial nest to explain the situation, her heart beating a hummingbird's tempo, but still beating nonetheless.

**Author's Note:**

> Let's start with the translations, shall we?  
> NTM is the acronym for the very strong French version of "Fuck You". Literally translated it means "Fuck your mother". Yikes.  
> Enculé is the French expletive for asshole/cocksucker.
> 
> Okay, that is that. A quick explanation on how I chose this title: Kaamos, like the synopsis says, is a Finnish term for "Polar Night". Quite literally, the best explanation is this: 
> 
> "Kaamos is more than just Polar Night when there are 24 consecutive hours of darkness, kaamos describes the longing for sunshine, and a feeling of depression and lack of motivation and enthusiasm. It signifies long dark days and bad weather, no social life, and a lack of inspiration." (Taken from The Intrepid Guide Blog, 203...Untranslatable Words).
> 
> When researching for some better expressions of grief, I stumbled across this one and was instantly hit with this work. I know it is much (much!) shorter than my usual works, but I thought that it was best done short and sweet. Regardless, thank you for reading it! Take a minute to check in okay? Do you need food or water? Have you gotten enough sleep and maybe some exercise? Are your med's up to date? I'm so proud of you for looking after yourself! Stay safe, do something nice for yourself, and be gentle with yourself as well, okay? I love you!


End file.
